Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman stopped by the PennLive/Patriot-News editorial board on Wednesday to provide a progress report on various fronts in the state budget negotiations with the Gov. Tom Wolf Administration and share some thoughts about an assortment of other issues.

Corman, R-Centre County, is in his first year as the Senate Republican Caucus leader after having served as their appropriations committee chairman for six years. He stepped into that role at a time when Pennsylvania voters created a divided state government by putting a Democrat in the governor's office and handing Republicans the largest majority in the Legislature that they've had in years.

Finding a budget compromise in those conditions could be challenging but Corman said if the budget negotiators have a mindset that "we're going to give if we're going to get ... we can get things done."

Here are five takeaways from Corman's appearance before the editorial board:

PROGRESS ON LIQUOR REFORM: Maybe GOP leaders haven't reached an agreement with Gov. Tom Wolf on this issue, but House and Senate Republicans appear to be nearing one with each other.

Sen. Jake Corman on liquor privatizationSen. Jake Corman details his ideas for liquor privatization in Pennsylvania. There's plans for it to proceed in the Legislature within the latter part of June 2015.

"We're trying to develop a system that doesn't add a lot of new licenses to the process but yet begins the process of turning a lot of this over to private hands," Corman said. "We think we can do that in a fashion that makes sense."

He spoke of favoring an approach that tries to work within the current system of licenses and wouldn't devalue the licenses held by beer distributors and restaurants. At the same time, it would allow some state stores to close while leaving ones that operate in rural areas, open or go to a store within a store model.

"These are the sort of ideas that we're trying to move forward on," Corman said. "We're looking at the wholesale, possibly leasing it and then moving toward possible divestiture, so we're progressing significantly with the House."

AFTERMATH OF MCGINTY'S CONTROVERSIAL REMARKS: Remarks made last month at the Pennsylvania Press Club by Wolf's Chief of Staff Katie McGinty about a Senate-passed pension reform plan still rile Corman.

McGinty called the Senate GOP-supported plan unfair to state employees and taxpayers because it provides "lavish payouts to legislators," which Corman said was a lie. The Senate plan treats legislators no differently than most other state employees.

"The chief of staff disparaged members of the Senate for her own purposes," Corman said. "To have the chief of staff out there as a point person and then going past policy to, I think, being dishonest and disparaging members of the Senate for a vote they made, an honest vote to try to correct a significant problem in Pennsylvania. She didn't argue with the policy. She attacked our character. ... To then sit down with her in important meetings to get things done is a problem."

TALKS WITH WOLF: Corman said he finds him to be honest and open and cordial and called that "a first step." But he also said, "We haven't really gotten down to the sort of brass tacks of negotiations" so he was uncertain at this point how dealing with Wolf will differ from his negotiations with former Gov. Tom Corbett.

"We're trying to plow through some of the bigger issues. We're making progress in some areas, not too much in other areas," Corman said.

One of the areas where not much of the focus has been to date, he said is specifically on revenue enhancements (tax increases) and expenditure enhancements (funding increases). Instead, he said they are going round about those topics by talking about pension reform with an eye toward saving the state money and liquor privatization that could generate some money for the state.

"We're trying to get it at all angles," he said.

ON CONSOLIDATING AGENCIES: Corman said he is supportive of consolidating agencies or shifting programs from one department to another if it makes state government more efficient.

He said the state's Insurance Commissioner Teresa Miller is proposing to move the Children's Health Insurance Program out of her department to the Department of Human Services as an efficiency move.

"I'm not sold on it yet because DHS is so big," Corman said, adding the Department of Health also is more of a regulatory body agency and not a good fit for the program. "But anywhere we can do that and be more efficient we should."

ON PENN STATE THRUWAY: Anyone who's made that trip on Route 322 between Harrisburg and State College has been wishing for it to become a four-lane highway between Harrisburg and State College, especially during Penn State's football season. Corman said their wish will be coming true in your lifetime, possibly.

He said work has already begun between the Potter Mill/Route 144 split on the top of Seven Mountains. Beyond that, the final link from there to Boalsburg has been funded and is starting to move through the approvals process.

"Yes, hopefully in our lifetime. None of us know how long our lifetime is going to be," he said. "But if it's a normal lifetime, it'll be done, which is a great thing for Central Pa."